Piano Chords: Your First Accompaniment

Beginners · 3 lessons · Six weeks

Three fingers and a whole song: how a triad is built, what an inversion actually changes, and which left-hand pattern turns a row of chords into an accompaniment.

Building triads

1. Three Fingers, a Whole Chord: Major and Minor Triads

   Finger, skip, finger, skip, finger — and that is the whole chord. And one finger moving one key turns happy into sad.

   What you'll learn

   • Build a triad anywhere on the instrument from a single pattern: finger, skip, finger, skip, finger.
   • Turn any major into a minor with one move of the middle finger, and hear the difference.
   • Play the six chords built on white keys alone, and know why they sound good together.
   • Practice the change between chords instead of practicing the chords themselves.
   • Identify the root of a chord and know why it is the note that gives the chord its name.

Inversions

1. Moving Your Hand Less: Chord Inversions

   The same three notes in three arrangements. Exactly the same chord, and a hand that stops leaping across the keyboard.

   What you'll learn

   • Build all three arrangements of any triad, and know that they are all the same chord.
   • Read a name with a slash in it and know exactly what it is asking for.
   • Choose an arrangement by the smallest movement of the hand, and hear what that does to the change.
   • Spot an inversion by eye from the broken gap between the fingers, without calculating.
   • Fit the fingering to each arrangement, with the thumb on the bottom note and the little finger on top.

The left hand accompanies

1. A Left Hand That Carries a Song: Accompaniment Patterns

   Four patterns that turn chords into an accompaniment, and an orderly method for joining the two hands without falling apart along the way.

   What you'll learn

   • Play four left-hand accompaniment patterns: the single note, root and fifth, the broken chord, and bass-chord-chord.
   • Choose a pattern that suits the song, and know why the simple one is usually the right one.
   • Balance the hands so that the left hand carries the song without covering the melody.
   • Join the two hands by an orderly method, at half tempo and then building up.
   • Adapt the pattern to a bar in which the chord changes halfway through.

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